I did not read my poem after the activity in class where we took one line of Whitman’s poem and just wrote from there because I did not think mine sounded like a poem. But what sounds like a poem? Isn’t a poem supposed to sound artistic? Aren’t the words supposed to have some cryptic meaning that can only be truly understood after in depth analysis? Isn’t that the difference between a poem and a regular piece of writing?
Well, that’s what I thought until Professor Kaufman told us the quote, “A poem should not mean but be.” I interpret this to mean that a poem should state things as bluntly or as simply as they are. Poems do not have to be unnecessarily difficult for them to be beautiful. A good example of this is Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”. Whitman is able to highlight the beauty of the most mundane sights on the Brooklyn Bridge. He says “Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! Drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me!” (Whitman 143).
Who knew such beauty could exist in a concrete jungle? Who even takes time to appreciate and soak in this natural sight? I think that is what poetry opens our eyes to. It is indeed an art form, one that makes the ordinary, extraordinary, just by noticing it.
You raise some really great questions about what we think a poem is supposed to be versus what a poem actually is…I wish you’d read your poem! I wonder if you might want to share it on Monday and then we can talk a bit about what a poem really is?